Backed Syrian force ruled out Turkey role in Raqqa-spokesman

Friday, 10 March, 2017

The conflict in Syria has always been complicated, but things in the north have really gotten tangled recently. "Anything could happen at any moment".

We continue to seek a dialogue with Turkish authorities in an effort to obtain permission to resume our operations in Turkey as soon as possible. "Hence a share point must be found. Talks are still continuing".

Turkey also launched its incursion into Syria in August 2016 in an alleged bid to push Daesh from Turkey's border with Syria and stop the advance of Kurdish forces.

The aim was to prevent the Kurdish YPG militia seizing territory in their wake.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is waging an insurgency in Turkey.

Mr Trump has also said the USA would create "safe zones" in Syria to protect civilians - a move that is unlikely to be welcomed by Russian Federation or the Syrian government and would require even more United States military involvement.

Turkey objects to US cooperation with the People's Protection Units (YPG) militia in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), or DAESH, in Syria.

But any hopes of this have faded in recent days.

The trilateral meeting in Antalya comes a day after Turkey stepped back from threats to unilaterally strike Kurdish militia deployed in Manbij.

Under a framework established in 2015, a USA colonel in Qatar and a Russian counterpart in Syria discuss the locations of operations their countries are carrying out in Syria without sharing intelligence. And also the "safe zone" in Syria that Turkey has been asking for from the worldwide community could well be established by the Jordanian border, not the Turkish one. "We remain hopeful that the government of Turkey will allow us to return to serve those in critical need", it added.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a militia alliance including the Kurdish YPG, is the main USA partner in the war against Islamic State in Syria. Washington has built its strategy around the SDF.

"We have made visible actions in deploying USA forces as part of the coalition in and around Manbij to reassure and deter - that's to deter parties from attacking any other parties other than ISIS itself", he said, using another acronym for IS. The coalition said it was investigating the incident. The meeting in northern Syria was attended by U.S. Senator John McCain and U.S. military officials, he said. This week, it cut the last main road from Raqqa to the jihadists' stronghold of Deir al-Zor.

Last month, the USA and Russian Federation issued a joint statement as co-chairs of the International Syria Support Group to advocate a cessation of hostilities that excluded ISIS and affiliates of al-Qaeda or other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.N. Security Council.

It came after Russian and Syrian regime forces started to move "humanitarian" convoys into Manbij, making it more hard for Turkish troops to launch the offensive they had threatened.

"Now we are discussing and saying that if you put aside those terror groups, we can clean Manbij together, we can clean Raqa together", Erdogan told a rally in Ankara, referring to the US. "It appears that the Americans have made up their minds", he told Reuters in a phone interview from the Kurdish-dominated city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria.

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